South Aegean Region Sees Strong September Arrivals After Robust August

Photo source: South Aegean Tourism Initiative

Greece’s South Aegean Region has already reached record year 2019 levels in September with the number of arrivals so far up by 18 percent making it one of the most resilient destinations in Europe, the South Aegean Tourism Initiative (SATI) said on Monday.

Home to popular favorites like Rhodes, Kos, Santorini, Mykonos and Karpathos, the region is going strong into the fall. More specifically, over the September 1-11 period, the region’s airports handled a total of 2,400 flights and approximately 350,000 passengers.

Based on that data, SATI said overall traffic for the year to September was up by 17 percent over 2019 attributing the positive trend to Greece’s successful management of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Indicatively, Rhodes has welcomed 2 million travelers so far, Kos almost 1 million, Santorini 675,000, Mykonos half a million, and Karpathos 76,000.

Overall so far in 2022, the South Aegean Region has welcomed 4.5 million tourists to its islands, SATI said.

Photo source: South Aegean Tourism Initiative

In August, South Aegean regional airports marked a 14 percent increase over 2019 welcoming 1.1 million passengers on 7,350 direct flights, up by 4.6 percent compared to the rest of the country’s regional airports.

In numbers, a total of 509,503 traveled to Rhodes in August, 256,479 to Kos, 177,391 to Santorini and 146,833 to Mykonos: all surpassing 2019 levels for the same month.

Top source markets for the region in August were the UK, Germany (Rhodes and Kos), Italy (Mykonos and Santorini), and France.

The South Aegean Tourism Initiative is made up of local tourism, trade and hospitality professionals and their relevant associations and chambers.